Battle.net Fee Conspiracies No More?

As per an interview with MedievalDragon a few days ago on BlizzPlanet.com, it can be nearly definitively discerned that Battle.net 2.0, as fans and users have dubbed the impending new in-game interface of the Battle.net online client, is, in fact, subscription fee-free.

The kick line was apparently delivered from a speech file from TeamLiquid, which said the following:

Quote from "Blizzard" »

what I will say is that a player who goes to retail and buys the Starcraft 2 box at retail will have the full Starcraft 2 game included in the box and they will have the ability to play on battlenet with no additional fee.

It shouldn't be much of a stretch to say this same feature extends to Diablo III, as both Starcraft II and Diablo III will be running on the same Battle.net. Also, as noted by many over the years, Battle.net has always been and still is a free gift from Blizzard.

However, it may still be possible that complimentary features, like name changes, may still be royalty services that require a little moola. That might be a small price to pay for the ultimate ARPG gaming experience available for free play.

This was actually tipped-off to me on June 1 I believe, but I neglected to post it until now. Sorry about that. All the credit goes to Svetopolk who found it first. The first thread on this article can be found here. Pop him some rep points if any of you get the chance, he deserves for finding this for our community as well as dealing with bothersome staff members, like myself.

Could this be a definitive declaration that Battle.net will be free for Diablo III as well? Would players be willing to pay for extended services if they are implemented? Does this increase the appeal of buying and playing Diablo III on Battle.net for fans?

The fact is that if Blizzard trys to slap a subscription fee on all their games they will cut their fan base in half / the people who will pay and the people who wont. I for one would never pay to play a game which always was free.. aka.. Starcraft and Diablo

Could this be a definitive declaration that Battle.net will be free for Diablo III as well? Would players be willing to pay for extended services if they are implemented? Does this increase the appeal of buying and playing Diablo III on Battle.net for fans?

The "definitive declaration" that D3 will be 100% free and that there will be no premium services or microtransactions for additional content has been spoken by the Blizzard CEO relatively long ago.

Not that I was strongly one way or the other, but I'm glad that Battle.net will be free

If they do introduce micro-payments then I hope they don't have any effect on gameplay, as that would create an imbalanced playing field between people who pay and people who don't. I would rather have 100% of people paying than it being imbalanced by optional paying